Lie to Me and I'll Lie Too
by gosai-girl
Summary: Carmelita gets permission to partner up with Sly, but what happens when she finds out that their whole relationship is based on lies? Sly/Carmelita, includes an OC; takes places right after the end of the third game. Please read and review!
1. Maybe This Wasn't Such a Good Idea

Maybe This Wasn't Such a Good Idea

Carmelita had never seen such a shade of red. Especially not on anyone's face. He looked like an irritable lobster baking in the sun. Oh, this wasn't good. Her voice faltered, threatening to give out completely. She cleared her throat and continued speaking. She was in so. Much. Trouble.

* * *

_Okay, so I know this is extremely vague, but trust me, it will all clear up soon. There isn't much here now, but it will be worth reading once I get my next chapter finalized and posted. Please bear with me! I hope I can make it worth it for you if you stick with the story. I have big plans for it... But for now, I will leave you with endless questions! muwahaha..._

_Feel free to comment.. if you can find anything to say about the minuscule amount of words I've posted here. But please.. don't waste my time or yours with pointless or rude comments. Otherwise, comments are what keep me going, and I hope to get far with this story! Thanks for reading!_

_**NOTE: If you hate this chapter, or any of the following ones, skip to chapter 8... that chapter is worth reading, I swear. I introduce a new OC in the 7th chapter, though (even though I hate that chapter with a passion), so chapter 8 may be confusing. But it's good, I swear! It's my favorite chapter.**  
_


	2. Let's Just Try to Stay Optimistic

Let's Just Try to Stay Optimistic

"Damn it, Fox!" the Police Chief of Interpol shouted, slamming his fist down on the desk. His whiskers twitched in anger.

Inspector Carmelita Fox flinched slightly and sat up straighter. She said nothing. Her ears pressed further back against her head.

"Did you even _think_ about he problems this could cause?" Chief Shepherd asked. He paused, but not long enough for Inspector Fox to answer. "You're obsession with this raccoon _has _to end!"

Sly Cooper, listening from his seat on the bench outside the Chief's office, smirked to himself, his tail twitching absently.

_"Obsession?" _he thought to himself. _"How often does Carmelita talk about me here?"_

He glanced around the room with a dumb look on his face and wrung his hands together in his lap, trying to look confused as other inspectors stared openly, seemingly unable to close their mouths, gave him subtle glances over manila folders, and bumped into desks, walls, and each other, watching him as they walked throughout the building. A hush had fallen since he and Carmelita had entered, and Sly had since been sitting on this bench, listening to shocked whispers while Carmelita explained the situation to the Chief.

Inside the office, Chief Shepherd took a deep calming breath.

"Okay, here's what's going to happen. _You _are being taken off this case..."

_"What?" _Carmelita exclaimed in a sudden panic, rising from her seat.

"Sit down!" the Chief commanded.

She sat. He continued.

_"You _are being taken off this case, _I _am locking up that raccoon, and _he_ is going to deal with the judicial system of his native country," he told her, pointing to her, himself, and the wall where Sly sat on the other side in turn. "Now leave my office so I can deal with this mess you've made."

"But Chief," she tried as he glared at her, "Don't you at least want to hear my idea?"

He looked at her, intrigued, and she listed off every possible reason ("he's talented," "it's a chance for him to redeem himself," "if we don't snatch him up then his criminal friends will") that she could think of, trying desperately to convince him to hire Sly into Interpol, and, more specifically, to pair he and Carmelita up as partners ("I've been on his case longer than anyone else," "I know him and how he works,"). When she finished, he stared at her through narrowed eyes.

"Fine," he said slowly, reluctantly. "But if this doesn't work, I'm removing you both from the Force. Permanently," he told her, furrowing his brows threateningly. "Now get out of my office."

Carmelita stood. "I won't let you down, sir," she replied, an odd thrill of excitement and victory making her hands shake ever so slightly. The Chief muttered something under his breath while Carmelita stood and walked away. Sly stood as Carmelita emerged from the office.

"Welcome to the team, partner," Carmelita said, a ridiculous grin on her face. She began walking toward the exit, calling over her shoulder, "Let's celebrate over lunch."

Sly grinned. It worked.

"Excellent," he said, more to himself than her. And with one last innocent glance around the station, and a smirk that was harder to control at each pair of eyes that disappeared behind folders and cubicles as he met them, Sly took off after his new partner.

* * *

_Woot! My first Sly story. I know there's not much content here, but I just wanted to set the scene and situation for mah story to get started. :3  
_

_Alright, so obviously Chief Shepherd is my own OC (I know, it's totally cliche to make the police chief a German Shepherd, but I couldn't help myself! lol). I thought It'd add a bit of reality to the situation if Carmelita had to get permission to work with Sly. He'll play a good sized role in this story. I'll develop him a bit in later chapters._

_Anyway, _please _review and tell me what you think! I have a few chapters written, which I'm still chiseling out and perfecting. Thanks for reading!_


	3. Whose Idea Was This? Mine? Oh, Right

Whose Idea Was This? Mine? Oh, Right

Sly sat in his new apartment, staring at the wall.

His ears twitched, his tail swung back and forth almost violently, and his feet tapped without rhythm or reason.

He was going stir crazy. And this was only the first night.

Interpol had provided him with an apartment temporarily until he could get things in order, and until he could meet with someone who would "remind" him how the process of renting an apartment worked.

He stood and paced back and forth, his tail knocking into an end table, rattling his lamp each time he passed it.

Interpol had found a cheap apartment, and cheap meant that only a tiny amount of work, thought, and decorating effort had been invested into the apartment- every wall was white. The tile and carpet were brown. He was going crazy.

He thought of Bentley and Murray and how hard they could make him laugh if they were there with him, and suddenly an ache gripped his heart inside his chest so tightly he could barely breathe. He stumbled back to the chair and sat down, his head between his knees. He would _not_ regret this. He couldn't.

He stood suddenly and picked up his key to his apartment (he couldn't remember the last time he owned a key), and tried to think of something to do that didn't involve pick-pocketing or jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He didn't really have any hobbies…

* * *

Boy, was this city beautiful at night! He hadn't really noticed the last time he had been in Italy. The moon reflected brightly on the river, and gently floating gondolas glided smoothly on the water, leaving wakes and ripples in the shine of the moonlight on the water's surface. He walked past a small bistro, its open door shining a welcoming light onto the night-darkened sidewalk, and his nose immediately turned him around and led him into it. He _had _to find out what smelled so heavenly. He stepped inside and stopped in the doorway, eyes canvassing the walls covered in beautiful paintings. A Burmese cat behind the register was bantering playfully with a gray wolf through a door to the kitchen behind the counter. She saw Sly out of the corner of her eye and fell silent.

"Thief!" she shouted suddenly, making Sly jump. "You terrible, rotten thief! Get out of my store!"

"What? No, I'm not a thief! I work for Interpol!" Sly argued, desperately trying to calm her down. The cat shouted at him in Italian, and reached into the kitchen. She whipped around, her arm swinging forward, and Sly saw a flash of silver. He ducked, and a second later heard the sharp _thunk _of the projectile slamming into the wall. He turned and, much to his horror, found a thick butcher's knife sticking into the wall. Hearing quick footsteps, he turned forward and glimpsed the cat a moment before she swung a pan violently at his head. His knees pulled him down instinctively; he felt the pan graze over the fur on his ears (it was still warm- it smelled like butter) and caught sight of the name on her name tag: Bernardetta. Bits of whatever was cooked in it flew as Bernardetta brought it back around to swing again. Sly leapt back out of the cat's reach, and began running. Hearing her follow, he grabbed hold of a pole outside the bistro and climbed.

"Run, thief! Don't ever come anywhere near my store again!" she shouted and reentered the bistro.

Sly took a shaky breath.

"I guess the news needs time to spread," he muttered to himself.

He leapt onto the roof of the bistro and tip-toed to the alley, assuming the cat with the pan was still on high alert. He jumped silently to the ground in the alley. It was cold and wet and smelled like Murray after driving for a week straight.

_Oh, _there it was again. The chest ache. He squatted and lowered his head, breathing deeply.

"This will go away. It'll get easier. It's just an adjustment. It has to go away," he thought to himself, standing back up.

He walked out of the alley and wandered through the city, remaining in the shadows. The silence of the night mixed with muffled laughter and chatter from the insides of businesses open late. Wary stares of passersby and workers inside stores with views of the street followed him everywhere he went.

* * *

BANG-bang-bang-bang

Sly jerked awake with a gasp, rolling off of the couch into a squat, knees bent, muscles tensed. His hand rested lightly on the ground between his feet for balance and extra leverage. His eyes quickly scanned the room. He remained perfectly still.

The knock sounded again to his right. His ear twitched. It was only the door. He stood, feeling a bit ridiculous, and walked to the door. He peeked through the peep-hole and grinned- it was Carmelita, who was fussing with her braid. He opened the door, and barely managed to suppress a greeting of, "G'morning, Beautiful," instead sufficing with, "Good morning, Inspector Fox."

She took in his appearance, and felt the corners of her mouth tug up as she caught sight of his mussed up hair. No wonder he always wore a hat.

"Carmelita," she told him before she could stop herself.

He grinned, giving his eyes the most adorable crinkle around the edges.

"Okay. Carmelita," he relied softly, searching her eyes. His were the most luscious brown she had ever seen, and, standing this close, she could see flecks of yellow and gold around his dilated pupils.

_Shit._

She tore her eyes away quickly, looking down at the ground, her smile disappearing. She cleared her throat. "Let's get to work, Sly," she commanded, suddenly all business. "We've got to get you checked out to make sure that Dr. M... _cabrón_," she spat, "didn't do any damage besides the amnesia. Then once we get the okay I want to start training you ASAP. I assume you're still in good shape," her eyes wandered over his chest and biceps, "but we'll have to teach you combat, self-defense, and how to shoot a shock pistol without electrocuting yourself. Hopefully we can turn you into a cop within a few months, if not less."

"Well, if our schedules are this straight-to-the-point everyday, I'd bet on less," he remarked with a taunting smirk.

"Then let's not waste any precious time," she teased. "Are you ready to go now?"

"Let's get to it," he said, closing his door behind him.

Carmelita gave him a strange look. She pushed past him into his apartment, and came out a second later with his key. She locked his door and began walking down the hall with it. "Are you coming or should my first lesson for you be how to harness and transport a resisting delinquent?" she asked over her shoulder.

He looked at his locked door with a grimace of forgetfulness and followed. "There's no off switch for your police mode is there?"

"It's my default setting," she quipped, glancing at him out of the corners of her eyes and grinning.

* * *

"Oof!"

The sound escaped from the back of Sly's throat as he hit the ground hard on his stomach _again_, the air in his lungs rushing out all at once. Carmelita lowered her athletic-tape-wrapped fists and walked over, trying to hide a scowl of disapproval. She extended a hand to Sly. He took it gratefully and stood, wiping his brow as sweat threatened to drip into his eyes. He rubbed his jaw; Carmelita could really pack a punch- but, then again, Sly hadn't expected her to actually _hit _him. This particular assault to his face had caused him to spin around in classic cartoon style, and land on his stomach, which was actually growing sore because he had landed on it so many times.

"You okay?" she asked, breaking the silence. Her voice was tense. Sly could see her frustration in the twitch of her tail, the tightness of her shoulders. He could tell that she was trying not to show her growing impatience for his inability to remain vertical while sparring. Carmelita watched as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm okay, but I don't think my stomach can handle one more attack from the ground today," he retorted with a pained smile.

She let out a short laugh, her shoulder loosening slightly. "Okay, Ringtail, we're done for the day. I'll find another way to kick you across the room tomorrow," she retaliated with a grin. She left the training room towards the locker room, and Sly rubbed his jaw again.

Pretending to know nothing about anything was becoming an exhaustion, especially after being punched around the room by Carmelita and being unable to defend himself. He could only do as much as she had taught him thus far so as not to raise her suspicion, and so far he had not done anything well. _Damn_, that girl was in good shape. After they had arrived back in Italy, it took about a week for them to get the okay to train, and for that entire week Sly had been poked and prodded in every possible way by every reputable doctor Interpol could come in contact with. Since then, she had been trying to teach Sly the basics for about two weeks, but she hadn't actually hit him until this practice. Maybe, he thought, it was time for him to "learn" some self-defense. This session "inspired" him to practice on his own. He wandered back to the men's locker room to change, rubbing his jaw.

* * *

_Before I say anything, _PLEASE _any Spanish speakers that are reading this, _please _tell me if that word (_cabrón_)__ means something other than what I think it means. The translation that I found was bastard, and I checked multiple websites and legitimate websites to make sure that it was correct. But again, just in case it _is _wrong, please let me know! I would appreciate it so much._

_Anyway.._

_Yay! Epic chapter. Okay, so again there's not much action in this chapter, but everything I wrote has meaning. I can explain what my thought process was for this chapter to anyone who wants to know, but I don't want to go too in depth.. I don't want to spoil anything for the future of this story (I myself am not entirely sure what that is, but I don't want to reveal too much of my thought process, in case it could give away any ideas I may have later!)._

_So as you can see from all the separating lines, I write my stories in little segments of action, location, etc. I read and reread a million times while editing, which is why it takes me so long to write a lot, and why each chapter has been so short so far. I've only got one more little section like this written out so it may be a while until my next post.. maybe.. hopefully not. I just wanted to get a bulky chapter up because my other two were pathetically short. Anyway, just enjoy what I've got and I'll try to plunk out some more!  
_

BERNARDETTA: Feminine form of Italian Bernardo, meaning "bold as a bear."

_(I thought that ^ was a bit funny ;) I didn't double check this one though, so let me know if I've got that wrong.)_


	4. Can't We Just Pretend Nothing Happened?

Can't We Just Pretend Nothing Happened?

"I'm pulling the plug on this operation of yours," Chief Shepherd announced after Carmelita had taken her seat opposite him. He watched her expression dampen rapidly.

When she had walked into his office, she had barely been able to contain a grin of sheer giddiness, resulting from the latest of her training sessions with Cooper, which had been steadily increasing in successfulness for a week. She blinked and furrowed her eyebrows, squinting slightly, as if seeing the Chief more clearly would help her better comprehend his news.

"I- I'm sorry?" she asked, struggling to keep pace, while at the same time trying to contain the sudden panic rising in her chest.

"We have to bring an end to this impromptu arrangement you've come up with regarding Cooper's future at Interpol," he clarified patiently.

"Why?" she probed, noting the edge of hysteria in her own voice, and the nervous twitch of her tail. She grabbed it, fiddling with the fur at the tip.

He pushed aside the folders he had been rifling through, and regarded her fully. "We can't continue to lie to him like this. It's not just a legal matter; it's a matter of morals, ethics. This needs to be his choice." He gave her a pointed look. "We need to tell him what his life was, and give him the option of being a cop, or being a civilian. It's only fair."

Carmelita stared at the table, ears pushed back against her head. _"Oh,"_ she thought. _"That makes sense."_

The Chief hesitated, but spoke again. "If you really love him," he watched Carmelita's head jerk up and her ears perk up, eyes wide, "you'll tell him the truth."

"I am _not _in love with Cooper," she snapped, her voice steely, battling a sudden surge of irrational anger and defensiveness, and the strong urge to smack her palm on his desk. "He's the most elusive criminal I've ever chased, and now that he's dragged me in this deep, now that I've finally caught him, I am going to finish what I started and reform him into a respectable citizen." She found herself leaning angrily toward the Chief and sat up straight. "If he lets me," she added reluctantly, dropping her eyes to the desk again.

The Chief didn't look convinced, but didn't press the issue. "Tell him as soon as possible, or I'll be forced to intervene. I want you both back here at twelve hundred hours tomorrow to discuss where to go once he has processed the news. If you'd prefer that _I _tell him, I can do it then. Understood?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Dismissed," he told her with a wave of his hand, turning his attention back to the open folders on his desk, ignoring her.

Carmelita stood on shaky legs, and walked out of his office. She made her way to her car and sat, staring at the steering wheel.

What would Cooper think when she told him? He would know she had lied to him when she told him he was her partner; would that affect the decision he had to make about staying at Interpol? Once she told him, what if he assumed he couldn't trust her anymore because of one lie? What if he was angry that she took advantage of him and his lost memory, thinking she only wanted him because he was a fresh slate? She let her head fall forward in exasperation, hitting it against the steering wheel. The horn honked, and she leapt upright with a sharp intake of breath, the sudden shock grating on her already frazzled nerves. She sighed in defeat, and started her car. It would be better for Sly to hear it from her; maybe her honesty now would make up for her.. weeks.. of lying to him. She grimaced. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea in the first place.

* * *

Carmelita's feet had fallen asleep. To gauge time, that was how long she had been sitting in her car, staring at Sly's apartment building. With a sigh of defeat, and the heavy knowledge that Sly would find out about her deceptiveness one way or another, she wiggled her toes and pulled her keys out of the car's ignition. Stumbling only once over her tingling feet, she made her way to Sly's apartment, a black cloud of dread for his reaction hanging over her head. Stopping in front of his door, she raised her arm, hesitated, and lowered it again. Maybe she should just leave it to the Chief to tell him...

No; she had to do this herself. It would be her redeeming herself for lying to him and dragging him into this in the first place. She raised her arm again, cringed, and lowered it. He was bound to be mad at her. What if he yelled? Told her off?

No, no matter what the situation, Carmelita couldn't see Sly reacting that angrily. With that reassurance, Carmelita quickly raised her hand and knocked, before she could come up with another fallback, like the fact that even if he wasn't mad initially after hearing the news, the longer he thought about how she had taken advantage of his amnesia, the angrier, most likely, he would get. Oh, yes; this had been such a bad idea.

She swallowed, trying to relax the tension of her whole body, which was slowly closing up her throat and hindering her ability to breathe properly. As the door knob jiggled, she could only hope that the smile she plastered on her face didn't look like a grimace.

The door opened and Carmelita's eyes widened, her pained expression changing instantly to one of shock. Sly was shirtless, dripping wet, with only a towel wrapped around his waist for covering.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, jerking her eyes away from his bare muscular chest and exposed abdomen, noticing the precariously low set of the towel on his hips. Her cheeks burned.

"Sorry!" Sly hid his lower half behind the door. "I thought you were a food delivery." He smirked scandalously.

"Oh, yeah, well, that's..." Her voice was an odd pitch; she cleared her throat, staring at the wall over his shoulder.

"Did you want to talk about something? Come on in. I'll change and we can talk."

"No!" she tried and failed not to shout. Sly raised an eyebrow. "I mean," she covered quickly, "why don't we take a, a walk? Yeah, let's take a walk."

"Okay," he replied, sounding amused. "Let me just change and we can go. Do you want to wait in here?" He opened the door a little wider.

"No, no just change and I'll wait here," she said quickly and a bit too loudly, forcing a smile.

"Okay, I'll be out in a sec." He flashed her a grin before closing the door softly.

Carmelita closed her eyes and blew out a huge breath as leaned against the wall, fanning her face, which was hot with embarrassment. Oh, wow, did Sly have a nice body.

_"Wait, what?"_ she thought, her eyes pulling open in surprise. She stared at the carpet, brows furrowed. _"Where did that come from? This is Sly. Just Sly. He's my partner and nothing else. He _can't_ be anything else," _she scolded herself. Not that she _would _make him anything else if she could; she definitely did not think of Sly that way.

The door opened to her left, making her jump slightly, pulling her away from her own mind. He was clad in his usual attire, with the exception of the hat. He hadn't worn it for a while, actually. Carmelita noticed that his hair looked a bit more tame than she had usually seen it. Sly held up his key to her, as if to prove that he could remember to lock his own door, as he had been jokingly doing for weeks, and locked his door behind him. Carmelita smiled weakly, trying to remember why she had come here in the first place, when a thought occurred to her.

"Why do you receive food deliveries in a towel?"

Sly looked at her with raised eyebrows, a slow grin overtaking his features and brightening up his face. He began walking toward the elevator with Carmelita trailing behind. "I did it once on accident. I had ordered food, but the delivery had taken so long, I wanted to pass the time with something, and I needed a shower anyway. The delivery showed up before I finished, and I didn't want to keep the person waiting, so I answered the door in a towel. Every time since then, that delivery girl has refused to accept my tips and has always given me extra fries. And she seems to be the only one from this food place that ever delivers to me anymore ever since that incident." He grinned, and Carmelita couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

"Wait, don't you want to stay and get your delivery now?" she asked. The door to the elevator let out a short _ding_ before the doors opened. Carmelita made no move to step in; Sly held the door, waiting for her inside.

"Eh, I'll just tell Mora at the desk that she can have the order. The delivery people have to let the clerks at the desk know why they're there anyway. Mora can just take it then."

Carmelita smiled as she stepped into the elevator. Even as a thief, he had always been this thoughtful.

A massive wave of guilt enveloped her as she remembered that the only reason he wasn't living his thieving life was because of her, and she turned her face away from Sly's as her smile disappeared. His entire life was changed now because of her- because of one stupid decision she had made in haste. She hadn't even thought it through before she took over his life. He was never going to forgive her for this.

"So, what would happen if you answered the door to a delivery _man_?" she couldn't help but ask as the thought occurred to her.

Sly let out a laugh, loud and ringing, and Carmelita smiled, enjoying the sound. "I imagine I would get some very different results."

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Cooper series, nor do I profit from using it's characters.**

_Whoop whoop! Another chapter!_

_Buwahahaha, I'm so evil to Carmelita. Don't worry, I'll improve her situation soon. ;)_

_I know, I know, this chapter isn't very long either! Ack! I'm sorry! I try to make them long, but I write slowly and I want to give you guys a Sly fix more often than I finish chapters. The next chapter will be GOOD though! Trust me. I'm so excited for it. It has yet to be written up, but I've got the best idea for it. You'll love it, or your money back! Heheh, I'm kidding. You're gonna hate it._

_No, now I'm actually kidding. lawl _

_Okay, I need to stop typing now because I'm getting more and more random. Oh, and the girl at the desk, Mora, is not an important character. I just thought I'd throw in another OC, but I really have no plans for her. She's kind of just there, just a detail in Sly's life; Mora the receptionist. She's a _Mora Romagnola_ pig (hence the name Mora) but the sources that I looked at for the name of the breed could be wrong. Don't take my word for the breed. XD_

_Anyway, please review! I love reviews, and I get so inspired by the fact that people actually like my story enough to leave their opinions about it._

_Oh, and I keep forgetting to add.. Thank you sooo much to everyone who has already reviewed, subscribed, and favorited(!)! I appreciate your support for my story so much!_

Thanks for reading!


	5. I Didn't Lie, I just Bent the Truth

I Didn't Lie, I Just Bent the Truth

Carmelita had always found Italy exquisitely beautiful at night, and this particular night was no exception. The air was crisp and fresh, a slight breeze stirring the leaves in the trees as they walked through the park that they had meandered into, and the moonlight emanating off of the full moon illuminated the carefully crafted stone path that she and Sly were currently wandering along. Tonight, however, she couldn't enjoy it. The breeze flipped the loose ends of her hair into her face, and the moon seemed to follow her and mock her with the mysterious shadows it cast among the trees. She and Sly had been idly chatting on the walk to the park, but now they had both fallen silent.

"So," Sly began, "what is it that you need to talk to me about?" he asked, all traces of his earlier joking gone in the wake of her seriousness. His fingers brushed against hers as they swung by their hips, and she puller her hands forward and wrung them together.

"Well," she cleared her throat and pushed her hair behind her ears, "why don't we sit first?" She gestured to a bench as the path pulled them towards it.

They reached the bench, and Sly sat, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and turned slightly towards her; she did the same, her hands fiddling with her tail in her lap.

Carmelita cleared her throat. "I have been ordered by the Chief to inform you of your previous situation before your accident," she began, trying to ward off the shakiness in her throat that threatened to cut out her voice. "Once you've heard your story, the Chief will leave it up to you to decide whether you want to remain at Interpol as my partner, or quit and lead the life of a civilian."

She paused, looked down at her hands in her lap, then averted her gaze off into the distance. Turning herself back to Sly, she saw him looking at her expectantly, his familiar brown eyes wide with intrigue and sincerity. How could she tell him that she had lied to him? He had always been so good to her, and she repaid him with dishonesty. Her mind flashed back to the fist time that he had kissed her- he had been musky with the sweat of obligatory vengeance; she thought of the helicopter ride after his second defeat of the Clockwerk body, their easy conversations and jokes; she remember all the times that he had helped her- running from Interpol, recovering in Australia; and finally, she pictures his toned physique, scantily covered by a towel, and suddenly she felt her mouth moving without her permission.

"You were working undercover," she felt her throat spit out roughly, quickly, surprising herself.

_"What?" _her mind shouted at her.

Sly's eyebrows immediately reached for his ears, eyes widening, and he turned his face away, hiding it from her view. Carmelita's voice almost failed her in her self-induced shock, but then he turned back to face her, his expression neutral but expectant, and her mouth continued to run illicitly.

"Interpol put you undercover with two thieves that we had been after for some time so that you could inform us of their methods and allow us to create a plan of attack to catch them."

_What the hell was she doing?_

"But the mission went on for years- much longer that we had predicted- because we couldn't have too much contact with you, and because we needed to make entirely sure that out final plan to catch them was foolproof."

_"Stop, now. STOP, now. STOP NOW!"_

"Your final mission with them was to rob the vault of.. a well-know thieving family. But unfortunately you were injured on the job, and.. the thieves that you had been undercover with were not apprehended. Now, you're options from the Chief are either to continue working for Interpol, or.. you can quit and receive medical compensation for the injuries you sustained."

_Now where the hell did _that _come from?_

"Seeing as how you are in a completely different situation now than you were before the accident, the Chief felt it necessary to provide that option," she finished, her voice finally giving out as her mind regained some control.

_What..._

_...what had she just done?_

Panic began to settle in in the wake of Sly's silence. She had just lied to him. _Again._ And this was a really big lie. Unable to watch Sly's unreadable expression any longer, her eyes dropped to her lap and focused on her fingers, which were tingling she was clenching her fists so hard. She relaxed her hands, and flexed her fingers in small motions.

Where had all that come from? Why did she say all that?

Oh, no.

How would the Chief react to this?

For a second, Carmelita couldn't breath, lungs fighting against the tightness of her chest, clenching with the idea of losing her job- with the assurance of losing her job. But then Sly cleared his throat, and she whip-lashed her eyes to him as she drew in a deep breath.

"I... well, I don't know what to say to all this," Sly managed, and cleared his throat again.

Carmelita couldn't find her voice to speak again.

"Do I have time to think about this?" Sly asked, and Carmelita's stomach pitted.

"Of course," she forced out through a stiff jaw. "But," she winced, " you only have until twelve-hundred hours tomorrow."

Sly's eyes widened.

"I can tell the Chief you need more time," she said hurriedly.

"No, no, " he quickly assured her. "Noon tomorrow is fine," he added quietly.

They both fell silent, listening to the leaves rustle, batted together by the breeze, and the woodsy creatures creeping through the branches. Carmelita shivered, goosebumps breaking out on her arms. Clearing her throat, she stood.

"Well, we should get you home. You have a lot to think about. I'll walk you back to your apartment," she muttered.

* * *

The walk back was painfully silent. As was the walk to Sly's room. As their echoing footsteps drew them closer to Sly's door, he pulled his key out of his pocket. He opened his door, stepped in, and turned to face Carmelita in his doorway. Her eyes widened as he leaned forward and gave her a soft peck on the cheek. He pulled back with a slight smile and gave a soft, "Good night, Carmelita," before closing the door.

Carmelita's face flushed as her hand reached numbly for the spot on her cheek. A slow grin overtook her, and she headed back down the hallway, unable to remember what she had been so worried about all day.

* * *

Sly leaned back against his door, his head greeting the wood with a muted _thunk_.

Carmelita had lied to him. _Again._

She had lied to him about everything she thought he couldn't remember. And for what? Why was she unwilling to tell him about his criminal past?

But, then again, why had she lied to him in the Cooper Vault? Did she really want to work with him that badly?

Sly's breath caught in his throat.

_Did _she want to work with him that badly?

His eyes widened, and he grinned in realization and triumph.

Oh, things were about to get a lot more interesting. He would make sure of that.

* * *

_DUN DUN DUN!_

_I am SO excited for this chapter, guys! _

_Like I've been saying in a few of my author's comments, I don't have much more past this written (or even thought) out. I try to write as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality and DRAMA! (muwahaha)_

_Please let me know if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes in here. I edited this pretty quickly to just get it posted already! _

_Thank you so much to everyone who has already read, reviewed, subscribed and favorited! It really helps so much.  
_

_Anyway... EPIC CLIFFHANGER! I'll be laughing evilly all night._

**DISCLAIMER:**

**I do not own the Cooper series, nor do I profit from using its characters.**_  
_


	6. Okay, So Maybe I Lied a Little

Okay, So Maybe I Lied a Little

For the second time in two days, Carmelita stood in from of Sly's apartment door, unable to force her knuckles to make contact with it, willing her hand to just _move _already. Her nerves from last night had come back with a vengeance, and she only wished that the earth would open up and swallow her whole so that she could avoid facing the Chief ever again.

He was going to kill her for this.

With a wince that overtook her entire countenance, she rapped on his door with shaking hands, and pasted on what could have been a smile. Sly opened the door, his face bearing a wide, disarming grin that brightened all of his features.

"Good morning! It's beautiful outside, isn't it?" He nodded is head in the direction of the large window that provided a view from his living room to the uniquely Italian city-scape, curtain flung open so as not to obstruct his view.

"Hi," she blurted quickly, surprised by his exceptional demeanor. "You're chipper this morning." She flashed an awkward grin.

"Am I?" He tilted his head slightly to the side. "I guess I just enjoy looking at beautiful things," he told her softly, leaning against the door frame, and staring at her deeply with soft eyes.

Carmelita felt her mouth curve up into a gentle smile, and her stomach clench with a pleasant nervousness. She looked down at the ground, smile unfading.

"We should get going. When it comes to the Chief," she began, her smile suddenly feeling heavy to maintain on her face, "it's best to think 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Are you ready?"

Sly reached to the side of his door for his key hook, and dangled his key in the air for show. "All set. Let's report to the Chief," he replied, the words feeling odd on his tongue. He still hadn't gotten used to saying that.

* * *

Carmelita was losing it. On the drive to the station, she had run through several yellow lights, and even a few stop signs. In the parking lot, she had walked away from her car leaving her keys in the ignition. Then, after retrieving her keys, she had closed the car door on her braid. As a finale, she had tripped on the curb in front of the station and then walked straight into the station door.

Fortunately, walking to the Chief's office went without incident, and she was able to sit down without causing any bodily harm or property damage. Meanwhile, Sly had been watching her with terror as she drove, then worry as she repeatedly hurt herself, and then slight amusement at her clumsiness, and had determined that seeing the Chief was what was causing her sudden bout of clumsiness.

Currently, the Chief was clearing his throat, commanding their attention for the important speech he had undoubtedly prepared for them. He turned his attention to Sly.

"I instructed Inspector Fox to bring you in here today to discuss your future at Interpol. This decision will be left to you. Has she informed you of your previous situation?" He leaned forward and looked intently at Sly.

Sly glanced at Carmelita, who was staring at her hands in her lap, brow creased in worry. She was really torn up about this lie- and, Sly thought, it could get her into a lot of trouble, too.

He sat up straighter, and met the Chief's gaze. "Inspector Fox informed me of my previous involvement with a small criminal gang, yes," he replied carefully. Carmelita's ears perked up and she turned to stare at him.

"Good," the Chief began, and Sly let out a breath of relief. "Now, I have been discussing your situation with a few commissioners and deputies here at Interpol and we feel that you have been," he paused, glancing at Carmelita, who lowered her head again, "unfairly... roped into a position. I do believe, however, that Interpol could benefit immensely from your employment. So, what will it be: do you want to remain an officer, and Inspector Fox's partner, or do you want to live the life of a civilian?"

Sly paused, and glanced again at Carmelita, who was staring at him openly, expression slightly dazed and worried.

"I want in," he affirmed, nodding at the Chief.

Carmelita smiled.

* * *

_Woo! Finally we can get the ball rolling!_

_Okay, so I know this is a teeny tiny chapter, but it's mostly a transition chapter I was saving to replenish my readers slightly during the drought of updates that is most likely going to follow. It's a bit anti-climactic, in my opinion, but hopefully enjoyable nonetheless. I think I could have written it better, but since it's not a humongo big deal in relation to what's coming, I didn't really feel like editing much. I'm sure this is not how police work, also, but this is how I wrote it, so there! lol _

_I'm creating my own villain, so it may take some time for me to nail down everything I want him/her to be. (I think I'll go with a female villain.. what do you guys want to see? XD )  
_

_So, I want to ask for a bit of feedback: how do you all think my characterization of these two is? I think I've done an okay job. I've tried to keep the mood a bit light-hearted for now since Sly is kind of an optimist, and there is always a lot of playful banter in the games. I do think that it is a bit out of character for Carmelita to be so nervous all the time, but now that dealing with her lie is out of the way (kind of), I'm going to resurrect her boldness and bravery and whatnot and make her the fearless cop she's always been! I also will NOT make her the head-over-heels in love type of girl, who falls over her own feet when the guy she likes even looks at her (I feel like I've done that a bit, with Carmelita getting a bit frazzled over certain romantic-type situations, but she WILL remain independent and strong). Sly will take on a bit more seriousness when it comes to protecting Carmelita from this mystery villain, and bringing an end to all injustices and stuff like that. Just let me know what you think! And don't hold back. If you hate it, tell me why, and of course if you love it I wouldn't be opposed to raves!_

_Thank you all so much for reviewing, subscribing, favoriting, and even just stopping by to check out my story! I appreciate it all so much.  
_

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Cooper series, nor do I profit from using its characters.**_  
_


	7. New Beginnings Don't Always Work Out

**New Beginnings Don't Always Work Out**

Gelisah Kilau hadn't wanted to do everything she had done. She had been forced to; she needed to. She hadn't had any other plans, any other options besides her training, and when they had done that horrid thing- she could barely stand to think about it- she had to act. She had to make them know how the fact that they had smothered her plans had ruined her; they had compelled her to do these things. They had driven her metaphorical sword through their own hearts, and her hand was just stuck on the other end. They had turned her into a villain, and she had to make sure they knew that. She would make sure they suffered for it.

* * *

[**FLASHBACK**]

This was the hardest thing she had ever had to do. Her legs trembled underneath her. Her forehead dripped sweat. Her rucksack was heavier now than it had been at the beginning of the trip, weighed down with impatience. The directions she had been given were faulty. Damn that stupid monkey. Why had she asked him anyway? Why had she tried to speak Japanese? That was even stupider. She had barely been able to stutter out the phrase that she had practiced before she arrived here in Japan. Now she was lost, following this dismal path through the forest with no civilization near. She could die out here and no one would know for days. Her feet halted and her entire body tensed, a shiver wracking through her at the thought. She couldn't think that way if she was going to make if out of here. She continued walking, fighting against the desperate urge, that now was tightening up her stomach, to turn around around.

She shoved it aside. She was going to find this damn dojo if it killed... if it took her all day. Giving up now that she was so close was _not_ an option. She adjusted her rucksack on her back and stood up straighter; it was here somewhere. She just had to hunt it down.

* * *

[**CONTINUED**]

**Wow**. _Wow_. wow

Gelisah's mind couldn't process any other words, and her mouth, which was currently hanging open and seemingly entirely detached from her jaw, certainly couldn't form any words at all. Every irritation had evaporated in the face of _this_. The pain of a three hour hike through the forest was entirely numbed by her fascination and admiration. She couldn't tell whether or not she was drooling. It was very possible. The panther's hand came up to her mouth slowly and wiped, but she didn't pay attention to the moistness that came away as she lowered her arm. Her head leaned back, following the sloping angle of the enormous uniquely Japanese building in front of her, until she lost her balance and stumbled backwards. This place was a fortress. No, that wasn't entirely fitting- it was a castle; that made it sound more magical. And for Gelisah, it _would _be a magical place. It had been her dream.. well, since she _could _dream to train at this dojo, and now it was finally happening. Assuming, of course, that she wasn't dreaming now.

She reached her hand forward tentatively and touched the door, making sure that it would not recede from her outstretched hand if she actually were dreaming. It didn't. She slipped her shoes off of her feet and into her rucksack as she picked it up, opened the door, and stepped in. Her mind shut down again. The inside was far more beautiful than the outside; the walls were a deep brown, with relaxing paintings consisting of yellow and red complementing each other on every wall. The ceiling stretched high, and sloped to a point where each support met at the top. She gaped in wonder and fascination, her eyes darting back and forth, unable to take everything in fast enough.

_"Watashi wa anata o tasukeru koto ga dekimasu ka?"_

Gelisah jumped at the sound of the voice ringing out through the room. It came from a female gray wolf, who had walked into the room from a door to the right. She was dressed in a deep blue _kimono_, covering her black _keiko-gi_, and stood barefooted. Gelisah hadn't even noticed her in her fascination.

"E-excuse me?" she forced out in English, hoping that this woman understood. English, as she had learned, was a widely used language, and she wasn't about to try her Japanese again.

"Oh, you don't speak Japanese? I'm sorry," the receptionist replied in accented English. "What language are you most comfortable with?"

"Malay," Gelisah replied.

"Okay," the receptionist replied in Malay. "I was asking a second ago what I can help you with," she continued, surprising Gelisah with her flawless transition between three different languages. "If you're here by invitation of the _kyōshi _ just give me your name so I can give you the necessary information and show you to your living quarters."

"Oh, my name is Gelisah Kilau. And yes, I _was_ invited by the _kyōshi_."

"Okay," the receptionist said, seemingly stiffening up upon hearing her name.

She pulled a small notebook out of a pocket in her robes and flipped a few pages before she settled on a certain one and began writing with a small pencil that had been closed in the notebook, pausing every few moments to read from it. Feeling Gelisah's stare on her face, she looked up and told her, "My name is _Odoroki_."

"Oh," Gelisah stuttered out awkwardly. "That's very nice."

"Thank you," she replied, and turned back to her notebook, seemly holding back a smirk.

In her awkwardness, Gelisah switched her attention away and became entirely entranced again by the foreign beauty of the room, and turned her head slowly in all directions to take it all in.

Odoroki moved faster than Gelisah could react. In less than a second, barely enough time for Gelisah to register movement, she was suddenly covered with a silky cloth that had previously been draped over Odoroki's back, obscuring her vision and trapping her arms under it. She dropped her rucksack abruptly, and flailed her arms against the cloth with no coordination, rendered stupid by the shock of the attack. It was ripped from her suddenly, Odoroki's glaring face too close to Gelisah's own, and a second later, Odoroki's open palm aimed at Gelisah's face, her face contorted with the determination and effort required to cause pain. Gelisah swooped her arm, knocking the gray paw away from her, but in another instant, the heel of Odoroki's other hand shoved into her stomach, knocking the breath out of her and causing her to double over. Odoroki took the opportunity to collide her knee into Gelisah's face, making her head recoil, blood trickling from her nose. In another fraction of a second, and moving so quickly that Gelisah couldn't even follow what was happening, Odoroki had Gelisah pressed to the ground, her knee digging into her back, binding Gelisah's arms together behind her.

"_Never _let your guard down around that which is unfamiliar to you." Odoroki's voice was steely and harsh, entirely reprimanding, the antithesis of her charming facade. She stood, and Gelisah could feel the outline of the bruise that would form in the spot where Orodoki's knee had shoved into. "You could be putting yourself at a disadvantage." She stood. "Follow me."

Gelisah listened to her feet pad away softly, but with purpose, and tried to move to lift herself up. Her arms flopped at her sides uselessly. The feet stopped somewhere off to the right side of the room, and Gelisah tried once again to get up. She brought her hands up next to her head and pushed, lifting up her upper half. Her feet responded slowly, and she got up onto her knees with some effort. She stood unsteadily, and her vision swam. She clutched her head and balanced herself before her vision cleared. She was now facing the door, Odoroki standing behind her in a doorway, her face managing to look indifferent and impatient at the same time. Gelisah noticed that she had picked up a folder from a small desk that was pushed against the wall she was standing near, which she was holding in front of her. Gelisah picked up her rucksack, her back aching as she did, and followed, trying to force her mind to keep up. She wiped her upper lip, trying to clear away some of the blood that had spilled from her throbbing nose, which was causing her whole head to throb, too. She followed quickly as Odoroki turned and led her down a hallway, and her head lowered in embarrassment. This wasn't the reception she had expected, to say the least.

But then again, what _should _she have expected? She didn't exactly receive admission for her sparkling smile and charming personality. She had received it for her skill. Suddenly she felt stupid; she should be ashamed that she hadn't been prepared to fight the moment she got here. That was the only reason she _was _here- to train- and she had to remind herself of that every day from now until she finished her training. Admiring her surroundings would only get her.. well, she had just seen, and felt, what distractions would get her. She had to be more careful- she couldn't let it happen again.

Odoroki stopped suddenly in front of a doorway. "Here is your room. You will share it with two other girls, but you will be placed into training groups based on your skill. You will be evaluated tomorrow, so be prepared." She reached into her folder and pulled out a few sheets of paper, handing them to her in the order in which she explained them. "This is the daily schedule for training, and mealtimes, and you will follow it based on which group you are placed in. This is the pact that you must follow at all times while training in this dojo. Read it carefully. If any one of those rules is broken, you will be thrown out before you can open your mouth to protest. Dinner will be served tonight at seven. You may relax until your evaluation tomorrow." She turned towards the door, but hesitated and turned back, her expression looking as if she wanted to be sympathetic. "You have been admitted for your talents, but talent will only get you so far in this dojo. The rest of your efforts must be from your determination, and resolve. Prepare yourself. Tomorrow you will combat some of the most experienced fighters we train. Do not overestimate yourself." With that, her face hardened again, and she turned and left.

Gelisah stood awkwardly, staring at the paper in her hands without reading it. Odoroki had probably meant her words to be inspirational or helpful or _what_ever, but they had only managed to further stress her out. She sat on the bed designated for her, dropping her bag near her feet, suddenly feeling the urge to cry.

What if she failed her evaluation? What if coming here didn't pay off? She had left her family for _this_? Was this really worth being disowned by her parents? She couldn't go back now if she couldn't handle it- they had told her if she left that she could never come back. She had had shamed them, and had nowhere to go if this didn't work out.

_Then you just have to _make _it work._

The unexpected thought comforted her slightly. She had always just made things work. This would be no different. It would work. She would make sure that it did.

* * *

**[PRESENT]**

Sly had actually done it. He almost couldn't believe it. He had successfully conned his way into Interpol. He had really, actually done it. This was a new level of success, even for him. And, to sweeten the deal, he had ensured that he would be partnered up with Carmelita. He couldn't wait to tell...

Oh. _Right_.

He couldn't tell the gang. He swallowed the disappointment in his throat, and tried to keep his expression from dampening. They would find out somehow. He hoped that they were at least keeping tabs on him one way or another. After all, they did still believe that he had lost his memory. Hopefully his cane and red bag left in the hole to the vault would give them a clue as to what was really going on. He swallowed guilt at the thought of up and leaving his surrogate family, and stood up straighter, trying to pay some attention to the Chief as he spoke. He was standing in front of a line of five new officers, Sly included, and was inducting and swearing them in. They were about to receive their badges and first assignments with their new partners from the Chief.

"_Finally_," Sly thought in exasperation.

It had seemed to take him forever to get to this point, when really it had only taken him six weeks. He had first had to finish his hand-to-hand combat training, and he had done so with an instructor from Interpol while Carmelita received small assignments within the city, and then he had moved on to learning how to wield weapons and shock pistols. It had been an entirely painfully dull experience, and Sly had become antsy and frustrated with the slow process that was necessary in the institution. He couldn't train himself like he always had before, which had taken a heck of a lot less time.

But finally, _finally_, he was here, receiving his badge, an official officer for Interpol. It was a shiny badge, heavy with significance, and perfectly crafted to honor the importance of the position he now held. _Constable Cooper_. He felt a tiny pang of sadness as he took his badge, sliding the cool metal between his palm and his fingers. This was the point of no return, and, he realized with surprise and a bit of guilt, he didn't want to go back. He shook the Chief's hand and returned to his place in the line, and after a short speech of congratulations, they were released.

Carmelita rushed up to him and hugged him in her hyperbolic excitement, before regaining her control and pulling away awkwardly. Sly laughed, a stupid grin on his face.

"Congratulations, Cooper," she told him seriously. "I'm proud to have you as my partner." She stiffened and saluted him jokingly, and he returned the gesture with a chuckle.

"Proud to serve with you, Inspector Fox," he told her, with only a hint of humor.

She smiled at him, staring into his eyes, and he couldn't help but stare back, admiring every beautiful aspect of her being. "Will you celebrate with me? Over dinner tonight?" his mouth blurted before he could even process the words, taking her and himself off-guard.

"I- I'd love to," she replied, her shock morphing into delight at his proposal.

"Fantastic." He hesitated."Wear something-" he leaned in close to her ear, "completely evil." He pulled back in time to catch the flicker of wickedness in her eyes, disappearing after only a second.

She opened her mouth to respond, with a smirk, but the Chief poked his head out of his office at the moment.

"Fox! Cooper! Get in here." His head disappeared again, and Carmelita suddenly looked guilty, as if flirting in the office was strictly prohibited.

They entered his office and sat, and Chief Shepherd tossed a manilla folder onto the desk. "Here is your first assignment. It's not much- we wanted to keep you local and out of danger for your first mission, and probably for the next few missions. This is just to get your feet wet. You'll start it tomorrow. Any questions?" He paused, and after their heads shook in unison, he told them, "Good. Dismissed."

Sly picked up the folder and opened it as he walked to Carmelita's desk. Carmelita sat down in her chair, and Sly sat in the chair he had dragged over a few days ago jokingly, after Carmelita had told him that their differences in rank provided her with a desk, but not Sly.

She watched his eyebrows raise in shock, and he slid her the offending paper. Looking over it quickly, she felt her own expression change.

"We've pulled the short straw," Sly said, his tone failing to sound as joking as he had intended.

"I'll say," Carmelita responded, almost irritated by the insultingly mundane mission of searching the house of a man suspected of currency counterfeiting. "But at least we have our evening of celebration tonight before we get into this," she reminded him with a subtle grin.

"And thank goodness for that. I'll pick you up at seven?"

She nodded, and he stood, gathering one copy of their files for himself, and leaving the second copy for Carmelita.

He leaned in close again, and said, "And remember, wear something so evil..." he paused, an mischievous glint in his eye, "wear some thing so evil that I mistake you for the bad guy."

With that he turned and walked away. Carmelita called after him from her seat, "If you can't recognize the bad guys from the good by now, Ringtail, I think you'd better give back that badge." She smirked at him, but there was more passion in her eyes behind it, something more sensual. Sly chuckled, and continued walking out of the office.

Once outside, he swung a leg over his new motorcycle, a small treat to himself for his secretly incredible accomplishment of conning the entire justice system, thinking that he was very much looking forward to his night.

* * *

_MUWAHAHA I'm so excited for this chapter!_

_Oh, and I'm back! heh, sorry for the extended absence. I encountered a monster of a writer's block in my story's path, and it's taken me this long to dismantle it and continue writing! But hey, this chapter is epically long, so hopefully that makes up for it. Though I know not much of it is Sly and Carmelita. Sorry bout that. I'm still dismantling the writer's block standing in my way of developing their relationship. _

_I do hope that I can get you guys excited for my villain as well, though. I know you didn't come to my story for her, but I'm very excited to write for her and I think that you will come to (hate) love her as the story goes along! lol, you may hate her. She is the villain after all. Oh, and she's a young black panther from Singapore. I'm making her 18 in the flashback, but maybe twenty-something when she encounters Sly after she's committed her crimes. I want the rest to be revealed in the story though, so that's all I'll say about her for now. _

_And PLEASE, any one who speaks Malay or Japanese, please tell me if I've made any mistakes writing in another language. I looked these things up on Google Translate, so hopefully it's legit. If you do speak one of these languages, and you'd like to help me with slang or anything else to make it more realistic, please give me your input, but make it real. I don't want to screw any of this up, and it's very tricky to only have the guarantee of the internet to ensure that I'm not, like, offending anyone in a foreign language. Oh! Almost forgot..._"Watashi wa anata o tasukeru koto ga dekimasu ka?" _ means "Can I help you?" in Japanese. _Kyōshi _means teacher in Japanese. Again, let me know if this is wrong. It shouldn't be, but there's always a chance... _Kimono_- things to wear. _Keiko-gi_- protective uniform worn while fighting.  
_

_From what I've gotten on the internet, _Gelisah _means unsteady in Malay (you'll find out why I chose this in later chapters :3). I know this is a bit of a ridiculous choice for a name, but I want the names to be symbolic, and I figured the symbolism can be more obvious since not all of my readers speak these languages and can read the word and know what it means literally. _Odoroki _means surprise or startle in Japanese, because she is not what she seems to be in the beginning. I don't know how much of her I'll use yet. She's a gray wolf, as I mentioned._ _  
_

_Oh, and I know the flirting between Sly and Carmelita is totally cheesy, but I think it's cute. Rip on it if you want to, but con-crit would be better, and help make this story better for all my readers. :)  
_

_Anyway, thank you sooo much for reading! And I'll be forever grateful if you review! I'll try to update sooner next time. :3  
_


	8. I'm Sure You Needed This, Too

**I'm Sure You Needed This, Too**

After the sixth irritating click of a phone hang-up in his ear, following after the near offended shouting upon hearing his name, Sly realized that most likely all of Italy, and every other country he'd committed thievery in, still associated the name "Cooper" with the word "thief," and that fewer people than he'd assumed had heard the story of his transformation from "thief" to "trusty officer." He reasoned that if this many restaurants, ranging from all throughout Venezia, over to Giudecca and Murano, vehemently refused to provide a reservation for his victory date - err, _dinner_ – then just as many that _didn't_ require reservations would instead deny him service, and would most likely throw him, and Carmelita, out onto the streets. And while the scenery from even the streets of Venice was stunning, he'd much rather provide her with a seat and a table to eat at.

After a few moments of staring at his phone, an idea struck him. He sprang up with child-like enthusiasm and a cheeky grin, and bounded around his apartment looking for adequate supplies.

* * *

Carmelita stood precariously in her heels in front of the elevator, waiting eagerly for the familiar _ding_ that would, in this case, cause further disconcertion to her already afflicted nerves because it would bring her that much closer to her first date - _outing_ with Cooper. She smoothed her ruby-colored dress and fluffed her long blue curls, feeling uncharacteristically nervous to see her partner. The elevator sounded, and before she could make a move toward the opening doors, she froze, momentarily shocked-still by the sight of Sly walking out towards her with one of his usual enormously mischievous grins. Noticing that he was in street clothes - and his old blue thieving gloves and boots that she hadn't seen him wear since receiving his standard-issue police gloves and combat boots- she gave him a strange look, still waiting for her mouth to regain mobility.

He spoke instead, grabbing her hand and gently pulling her back towards her apartment room: "Change of plans. And change of wardrobe, too. Sorry for the short notice, but I've been busy finalizing our new plans for a few hours."

"Wait, what? What do you mean 'change of plans'? Where are we going?" she asked fruitlessly as Sly tugged her along, handing over her key absently when he beckoned for it with his outstretched palm. "What do I change into?"

"Comfortable. Training gear- wear some of that." He ushered her through the door, but then pulled her back, resting a hand on her waist. "You look absolutely beautiful, Carmelita. We'll have a normal outing for our next celebration. Our first criminal sent to jail," he added before urging her through the door again, closing it softly behind her, waiting in the hallway while she stood, bewildered.

She fumbled her way to her room in her heels, removing them with a sigh of relief along with the new dress she had picked out especially for the occasion. After changing, she inspected herself in the mirror before exiting her apartment to rejoin Sly in the hallway; this was an unorthodox outfit for a date... _celebratory dinner_, she corrected herself. But then again, she thought, Sly had always been unpredictable.

* * *

"The Rialto Bridge?" Carmelita repeated, surprised, having finally gotten their destination out of Sly after persistent questioning. They had climbed to the top of her apartment building, and had been leaping from rooftop to rooftop rather than walking to their outing's location. Her impeccably curled hair, held up in a hair tie, bounced against her back, taunting her with the reminder of the glamorous dinner she could be enjoying instead, wearing her dazzling dress and flaunting her fluent Italian in front of Sly. "Why are we going there? It's beautiful and all, but I thought we were getting together for a _dinner_ celebration, not to look at Italian scenery."

Sly glanced at her, and said only, "If you keep asking questions, your surprise won't seem so spontaneous, and I didn't bring you out here so you could experience something you're expecting." He leapt to the rooftop of the building ahead of them. "But," Carmelita continued after landing next to him and matching his quick pace, "I don't see why you're taking me there. I've already seen it, and even if I hadn't, it's not like we would be able to see any details in the dark."

When he didn't answer, she huffed in annoyance. Sly could feel the smirk creeping across his face- he couldn't hold it back any longer. Carmelita got so frustrated so quickly sometimes. Being led blindly had been making her steadily more annoyed. She began muttering in irritation under her breath and Sly stopped suddenly in the middle of the roof they were running on, spinning around with a huge grin to face her, hoping to counteract her irritated frown. "What's so awful about being surprised? Just go with it and enjoy the experience, and know that I would never lead you wrong. You trust me, right partner?" He flashed a jokingly hopeful smile that only got wider at the sight of the corners of her scowl twitching upwards, despite her visible efforts to hold back an answering grin. The amused grin was more powerful than the scowl, though, and she abandoned her frown in favor of a playful smile.

"All right, Cooper. Lead on," she told him, placing her right hand on her hip and gesturing for him to continue with the other. He grabbed hold of her outstretched hand before she could lower it, and pulled her close to him, staring at her intently and lacing his fingers with hers. Her smile disappeared in favor of the flustered, wide-eyed expression that Sly had been seeing a lot of lately.

"I'm glad you trust me, Carmelita," he murmured, and watched her swallow and nod with a weak smile. He swayed forward slightly, and her eyes fluttered shut.

* * *

_Breathe. Remember to breathe._

He was standing so close to her, and - oh, jeez, he was leaning in. She could feel her eyes close against her will, despite her usual tendency for complete self-control, and she became too preoccupied with the arduous task of keeping her knees still to focus any of her efforts on reopening her eyes. She could feel his heat overwhelming her, his thumb stroking over her fingers as his other hand came to rest on her lower back. He pulled her further closer to him, making her fur stand on end as if it were reaching out for him, and then suddenly, his heat was gone, and she could hear his near-silent footsteps whispering across the rooftop. It took a moment for her to regain the ability to open her eyes. Sly was sprinting across the roof. He turned his head back to her without slowing down, and shouted, "Coming?"

It took another moment for her mind to process what he meant. "We're nearly there!" he shouted back to her, jumping and flipping off the building to the alley below. Another moment later, Carmelita's legs responded, and she took off running after Sly, jumping down into the alley after him to see his tail whipping around a corner ahead.

"You won't lose me that easy, Ringtail!" she threatened jokingly. She rounded the corner to find him jumping and grabbing onto a pole, climbing swiftly. Stopping short at the side of the building, she jumped, her legs pushing forcefully off the concrete. She landed on the roof with a laugh and a cheer of victory, preparing to turn to Sly to gloat but stopped short when she realized why Sly had brought her all this way. She stared at his unexpected gesture of chivalry, turning with an incredulous expression to Sly, who had climbed up behind her and was now grinning at her, looking uncharacteristically sheepish.

She walked to the other side of the building to the small table set up on the roof, completely equipped for a dinner for two. On the table directly across from each other sat two empty wine glasses next to two sets of plates - with a smaller plate sitting on top of a larger one, two sets of forks and knives, two cloth napkins, a candle centerpiece, and a silver platter covered by an accompanying silver dome containing what Carmelita assumed was the main course of their celebratory dinner. A chair sat behind each set, and the entire arrangement was made complete by the astoundingly beautiful Italian scenery, peeking out just above the edge of the roof. The bridge was lit bright against the dark background of the night sky as empty gondolas bobbed in the water around it, tethered to posts set deep in the water, and the smooth hum of incoherent conversation from passers-by reached their overlooked dining spot.

Sly moved to the back of one chair, pulling it out and gesturing with his hand for Carmelita to sit. "Miss Fox," he said cordially with a grin that held only a hint of its usual joking manner. She sat, and Sly walked to the side of the table, pulling a matchbook from his pocket and lighting the candle centerpiece. Carmelita could only stare at him, for once unable to think of a witty response to his outrageous antics. He pulled a small ice box out from under the table, and from it pulled out a bottle of wine and a small silver bowl. Carmelita watched the stream of red wine pour from the bottle as Sly filled her glass, and then his own. He handed her the salad bowl so she could scoop out her desired portion, sitting down in his own chair.

She finally inquired, "So, just making reservations at a restaurant is too boringly conventional for you, I assume?" He let out a barking laugh as she started scooping her salad, but seemed to catch himself, stopping short of laughing harder. He replied, "I just wanted to give you a night to remember. Any special night is worth remembering, right? Why not go big?" He picked up his glass, holding it in midair for Carmelita to clink. "To a fresh start," he proclaimed optimistically, looking overly eager for her to toast back. She lifted her glass and tapped it against his, the soft tinkling filling the silence of the moment, repeated, "To a fresh start," with more gusto than was required for the simple toast, and took a hearty sip of her wine with a smile she couldn't hold back.

* * *

The echoes of Gelisah's footsteps resonated intimidation down the silent hallway. Her dwelling for the past eight years was now her base of operations- her fortress. Every student was her disciple, every former mentor her minion, and every weapon her arsenal. Her pupils now trained to please her, to support her cause, and to be the very persuasive reasoning for the citizens of the neighboring villages a few miles away to stand out of her path of conquest when her forces passed through. Any previous opposition had already been taken care of. Patrolling the hallways as she was doing now was a result of those in her own dojo who tried to oppose her will. Those were the ones who did not see the logic in her philosophy. Those were the traitors she took care of personally.

A door burst open in front of her, yanking her out of her contemplations, and Orokana, her newest dolt and blind-follower of a recruit, stumbled through. The boar panted as he looked right, then left, where Gelisah had stopped walking, waiting for his report with her hands clasped behind her back.

"M-Master!" he cried desperately, practically flinging himself onto her. She raised her eyebrows and lifted her chin expectantly.

"It, it's Prisoner Terasu! He's taken down thirty-one guards already and the remaining fourteen won't last long!" His eyes were wide with panic as his chest heaved.

"Thank you, _enjo_," she purred calmly. "I will take care of it." She breezed past him, and continued down the hallway, listening as Orokana's heavy footsteps echoed over her own as he rushed off in the other direction, knowing without being told to bring reinforcements to take down the Prisoner.

She wound her way through the halls to the Prisoner's cell, listening as the sounds of the determined struggle became more distinct. As she turned a corner, a screaming guard, defeated guard number forty-five, she assumed, came flying out of a doorway at the end of the hall from the right. He crashed into the wall on the left and slumped to the floor, silent and unconscious. She stopped again expectantly, and a moment later, Prisoner Terasu ran out of the doorway that he had sent the guard soaring through, stopping in his tracks when he spotted Gelisah.

"It took you longer this time," she droned monotonously.

"You recruited more formidable guards," he replied simply.

"Not all of them were so." She jerked her snout to indicate the fallen crane, still unconscious on the ground next to the macaque, who didn't spare the armored bird a second glance. Prisoner Terasu opened his mouth to respond, but fell silent when a crowd of guards led by Orokana ran around the corner, stopping abruptly upon seeing Gelisah, who raised her hand to stop the guards from attacking. Her ears twitched, and her eyes did not leave the Prisoner's face as she said to her guards, "I will handle him this time."

"Ah, time to set an example for your sentries. Have my previous two escapes not been enough to teach your 'guards' how to contain a prisoner properly? You have not been training them well enough, _master,_" he spat sarcastically.

Gelisah growled threateningly in annoyance. "I _have_ trained them well enough. The ones that I determine to be sufficiently prepared to keep you in check seem to fall dead at the most inconvenient times." The monkey raised his eyebrows at her, feigning interest. "I am still looking for your informer among my operatives, by the way," she continued.

"You are wasting your time on paranoid tasks," he replied, squinting in disapproval.

"My methods are not for you to assess," she growled out, clenching her teeth with her waning patience. "Now, must we continue this useless conversation, or may I use your escape to show my students how to incapacitate a difficult target like yourself?"

In response, he bent low at the waist in a bow, keeping his untrusting eyes trained on hers. "Get up, you old fool," she snapped, her lips curling up to reveal her teeth clenching in anger. Disappointment weighted the corners of his mouth down into a frown of disapproval as he straightened up slowly with a sigh. "Such insolence. You will not even bow to your Master anymore," he noted discontentedly. She snarled. "You are _not_ my Master," she seethed, lunging forward to attack.

He reacted faster than her fists moved, knocking her right and left handed punches away, bringing his own hands up in an attempt to strike both sides of her head to discombobulate her. She brought her hands up to either side of her head, and when his wrists smacked into her own, she twisted her hands and grabbed his arms just below the elbows. She pulled her arms in, each hand reaching for its opposite shoulder, pulling Master Terasu in close to her, crossing his arms as well, constricting them. He jerked his head forward, and she lunged backwards away from his headbutt, releasing his arms.

They continued struggling, giving near hits and receiving near misses, the guards reacting behind them with quiet gasps and noises of discontentment, all of them making the same noise as they watched Gelisah's head snap backwards after a particularly rough hit to her face. Master Terasu's right foot followed her as she stumbled backward, aiming a kick at her stomach. She grabbed his foot and twisted it to the left, attempting to incapacitate him. He spun his body, following his leg, and landed on his back with a grunt. He leapt up to his feet before she could move to attack him, but as he moved towards her, his face was covered suddenly by the soft cloth of Gelisah's _haori_, blinding him. He felt the abrupt impact of her kick to his stomach as he reached for the garment to pull it off, knocking the wind out of him. She had her hand against his throat before he could reach for the _haori_ again, and he was shoved against the wall with enough force to knock his head back against it, making him dizzy in addition to being entirely out of breath. She ripped the garment away from his face to reveal her furiously fuming grimace, which soon grew blurry as the Master's consciousness was swiftly sucked out through her brutally relentless fingers.

She let go before he could lose consciousness entirely, dropping him to the ground. He fell to his hands and knees, head bowed as his lungs tried to suck in air and cough it out all at once. "I am the Master of this dojo now," she told him as he looked up at her. As she turned to her guards to instruct them, she heard Master Terasu sputter incoherently. She kneeled in front of him and gripped his chin roughly, pushing him backwards onto his butt, pressing his head back against wall.

"What did you say?" she asked threateningly. He looked at her, contempt layered over pain in his gaze, and spat out, "I have always taught you that choking your enemy to incapacitate him is weak." Gelisah's fingers clenched tighter around his jaw in anger. "A true fighter does not need to cripple his enemy to defeat him." She growled low in her throat, baring her teeth in anger, and let go of his face, jerking his chin violently as she pulled her hand away and stood. He continued, beginning to tremble with fervor. "If you had not become too proud to listen to my instruction... ungh!"

The back of Gelisah's hand to his face cut him off abruptly as she snarled viciously at him. "I am _not_ weak!" she shouted. "And I am a true fighter," she growled out. "I have your _instruction_ to thank for that," she added quietly, watching him almost remorsefully. But the expression flitted off of her face in an instant as she turned to her guards, shouting at them suddenly, startling them. "Take him to the empty prison cell in the west wing! Now!" A trio of guards among the crowd of reinforcements rushed forward immediately and restrained Master Terasu. "Double the guards around his cell," she instructed, glaring at the monkey spitefully. "I do not want to have to deal with his restlessness again. If this... _perosak_ escapes one more time, it will not be _him_ I take down." She stared down each guard individually, watching as they began to tremble in the wake of her intimidating gaze. "_Rikai_?" she barked out, startling them. They all nodded hastily, and glanced at each other in fear as Gelisah marched back down the hallway she had come from, the rest of the reinforcement troop nearly jumping out of her path as she passed.

She _was_ a true fighter. And she hated that he had shown her how to be.

* * *

**[FLASHBACK]**

"Who is that?"

"I don't know. New girl?"

After a pause. "Not another one."

"What?"

"If Master Terasu keeps accepting new fighters into the dojo and working with _them_, he has less time to work with _us_."

Another pause.

"I never thought of it that way."

"Yeah, I figured," the first voice spat sarcastically.

Gelisah's gaze twitched back and forth in the darkness, now even more wide awake than she had been the past hour and a half. The two girls, she assumed they were her roommates, had just walked into the room to find her fruitlessly attempting to sleep, her back to the door. She had been lying in her bed facing the wall, hoping to sleep away her first-day nervousness, though her nervousness, ironically, prevented her from sleeping. Awkwardly, she pulled the blanket higher up on her muzzle, trying to pass it off as shifting in her sleep. Footsteps padded across the room.

"Wait, what's that supposed to mean?" the second voice asked, volume rising.

"Maybe if you _thought_ about it for a second you wouldn't be so confused," the first voice muttered.

"Are you calling me stupid?"

"I'm not calling you anything," the first voice rang out. Gelisah could feel the sarcasm, layered over with mock-defensiveness in her voice as it hummed through the humid air.

The second voice muttered something incoherently, then said louder, "What kind of fighter do you think this one is?" Gelisah tensed. One of the roommates opened a drawer in her bedside table and shuffled through her possessions inside. "I'm not worried," she heard the first voice hiss. She could feel her face immediately pull into a scowl under the blanket. The scratching of a match being lit sounded out, and the room glowed dully, tinted orange. The girl blew out the flame a second later, but the glow remained; she must have lit a candle. Gelisah's own shadow flickered on the wall in front of her face, and she shifted uncomfortably. "Hey..." the first voice whispered again.

"What?"

"Let's mess with her!"

"What? Why? She's sleeping!"

"She won't be soon..."

The voices lowered inaudibly, and Gelisah lay tense, waiting. The unintelligible whispers continued, angry responding to excited, and after a disgusted grunt of defeat from the angered voice, the room fell silent. Gelisah's heart began beating rapidly in her chest, and she dug her claws into her palms to stave off the panic that would turn her shaky breathing into chest-heaving hyperventilating. This girl must be an impeccable fighter if she was training at this dojo, and she didn't know whether or not they were taught to limit how badly they hurt their training partners- well, in Gelisah's case, _prey_- before they ceased their attack. If they stopped at all... Maybe they were taught to fight to the death at this dojo... Would this fighter _kill_ her? _Could_ she?

Suddenly, pulling Gelisah out of her mentally unhealthy reverie, two paws slammed into her left side from above. She immediately flipped to her left, flinging her arms and legs and feeling them hit a heavy body, pushing her offender off with all four paws with a grunt, her blanket tumbling to the floor along with the attacker. The small animal flailed under the blanket and hit the ground with a thump and a yip of shock, the blanket falling on top of her, obscuring her identity from Gelisah. In one motion, the attacker stood and flipped the blanket off, flinging it back at Gelisah. Her attention on the blanket as it assaulted her face, she felt her legs swept out from under her, and she fell onto her back on the bed. The attacker landed on her again, restraining her arms against her chest with one hand and using her other forearm to press against Gelisah's throat. The soft surface of the bed gave out slightly behind her, preventing the attacker from doing any real harm. The girl held still for a moment, and with a serious expression, watched Gelisah's strained face as she continued to struggle for liberation. Gelisah glared at the young arctic fox sitting on her stomach, pelt a coalesce of white and gray with the summer heat.

A moment later, a maniacally enthusiastic grin broadened the foxes features, and she shouted, "Welcome, New Girl!" with a false enthusiasm that grated on Gelisah's nerves like a yank to her tail."What's your name?" She removed her arm from Gelisah's neck, but kept her pinned down. Gelisah coughed, throat irritated by the unfamiliar push of neck to trachea, and muttered, "What is it with you people and blinding attacks?"

"What did you say?" the suddenly furious fox challenged threateningly, jamming her arm against Gelisah's neck again, with much more force than the last time. She let out a choking cough in response to the sudden disagreeable obstruction to her ability to breathe. "Are you insulting our tactics? Insulting our tactics means insulting our Master and I will not stand for that!" Her voice had risen to a near delirious shout, face scrunching, brow lowering into a penetrating glare.

"Tori, relax," the other, timid voice called out hesitantly from across the room.

"Lihai, don't even start with me," Tori cut her off impatiently, not removing her glare from Gelisah's own angered stare. "I asked you a question, New Girl: are you insulting our tactics?"

"If you want her to answer..."

"Lihai!"

"...then stop choking her!" Lihai spat out in irritation.

Tori lifted her arm, and Gelisah began coughing again.

"Answer me!"

"_Gakuse_ Tori!" Odoroki's voice sounded from the doorway. Tori leapt off of Gelisah guiltily and stood up straight, eyes scrutinizing the floor. Her ears pushed back in contrition, and her tail swished, fidgety, between her ankles. Gelisah sat up on her bed and cleared her throat softly in an attempt to alleviate the irritation.

Odoroki began to lecture Tori, who listened with a guilty expression and an uncomfortable shift in her feet, and as Gelisah watched, she couldn't help but feel sympathetic for the short-tempered fox. Tori responded to a question Gelisah hadn't been listening to with a contrite, "Yes, _Gaido_ Odoroki." Odoroki then addressed them all, saying, "You would be wise to get to sleep now," giving them each a look of warning. "You each have a hard day's work tomorrow." She turned to leave.

Tori watched the wolf walk away, and when she was sure they were once again alone in their room, she spun to give Gelisah an alarmingly spiteful glare, the fur on her tail and the back of her neck bristling, teeth bared. She stamped over to her bed and ripped the blankets aside as if they were an offensive _thing_, nearly flinging herself onto her mattress. Lihai sighed and sat down quietly on her own bed, blowing out the candle she had lit softly, slowly removing her training attire in favor of a soft-looking shirt and pair of sleeping pants. Gelisah sat down on her own bed, feeling even more helpless than she had before. Lihai lied down, pulling the blankets over herself gently. Gelisah wondered absently how the komodo dragon could be a fighter; she seemed so innocent and benign.

"My name is Gelisah," she responded to the silence, sitting on her bed forlornly. "I'm the new girl."

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Cooper series, nor do I profit from using its characters.**

_First off, _I changed something in the last chapter_. I had originally named the master Kana Jaakuna (if you remember), but decided to change it to Master Terasu. So the master she is referring to in the last chapter, the one who brought her into the dojo, _IS_ Master Terasu. I changed only that one detail in the last chapter (even though I reread it and wanted to change a lot.. heheh), but I wanted to make a note of it here. _

_Okay, so this chapter took for-FREAKING-ever… I had MAJOR writer's block before this chapter came out. I couldn't write at all for weeks! _

_I'm going to start making Sly and Carmelita's story move faster, because I think I've gotten too excited about little details… I do have one question about them, though… Do you guys want me to write their first kiss, or just move them straight into their romance from here? I was considering jumping forward, like, a year, but if you guys want their first kiss, let me know! Please give me your feedback! I really want your opinion, because I would love my story either way- I just want it to be great for you guys, too._

_As far as Gelisah's story goes, I like to think of it as homage to Kung Fu Panda (because I love that movie so freaking much!). I love the idea of the student gaining power over the master and becoming power hungry instead of just hungry to learn. I don't know if I'll make the Master a big character like Shifu in KFP (abbrv lol) but he's introduced here, so you guys know him. I'm not entirely sure yet what her motives behind overtaking the dojo are, or even her goals at this point, but even if I knew why she was so angry at the world (heheh), I would probably keep it as vague as it is now because I want you guys to find out why she's fighting_ as Sly finds out_, like in the games, because *SPOILERALERT* their stories _will_ intersect eventually. That's the whole point of making her. XD_

Terasu: _illuminate (Japanese)_

Orokana: _brainless (J)_

Haori: _coat (J)*_

Perosak: _pest (J)_

Rikai: _understand (J)_

Lihai: _shrewd (Indonesian)_

Tori: _victorious (English)_

Gakuse: _student (J)_

Gaido: _guide (J)_

_*The haori isn't exactly a coat… it's a bit hard to describe, but it's something like a coat worn over the rest of Gelisah's clothes._

_If there are any translations I forgot, let me know and I'll add them. The descriptions there, as well as the species of the animal, should tell you where the new characters originate from, because I want this dojo to have fighters from all over the world. I'll probably mention other fighters later, but none of them will be really important. Only two of the new characters will have any significance later on in the story._

_Oh, and I want to share this little thing with you guys. .com/watch?v=dP15zlyra3c_

_(Whoa, this saved totally wrong. That link above is on You Tube (I'm spelling it like this so it actually shows up), so just type in the you tube part and then the rest of that link if you want to watch the video.)  
_

_Imagine Tori the arctic fox (she's from Alaska, by the way) doing this when she jumps on Gelisah. I know this is a red fox, but arctic foxes hunt the same way. I just used this because it's a really good video._

_These Author's Notes keep getting longer and longer! lol_

_Thanks so much for reading, reviewing, subscribing, and favoriting!_


	9. Don't Think You're Off the Hook Yet

**Don't Think You're Off the Hook Yet**

"So," Carmelita called out to Sly as she flounced back to their shared desk after assisting one of the newer recruits for the hundredth time of the day. He looked up at her and pushed aside the folder he had been reading through as she sat down across from him. "What do you think of another rooftop dinner next week?" she asked, voice lowering to conceal their conversation from the rest of the station and leaning towards him over the desk. "Friday night? I'll orchestrate this one. I need a whole week to plan, though. I'm not quite as outrageously creative as you are."

She had already started planning, trying to come up with new ideas to top his fantastically outrageous productions. The two had been enjoying their clandestine dinners once a month for a year now, each one leading them deeper and deeper into their progressing relationship. Every dinner had been in a new location, determined by whichever city in Italy they had been sent to by the Chief, who had started trusting them with assignments outside of Venice. The backgrounds of their dinners were always an astounding Italian landmark: the Colosseum and Pantheon in _Roma_, the _Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi_, the _Piazza del Duomo_ in _Pisa_, and the _Basilica di Santa Maria del Fior_e in _Firenze _were just a few. Carmelita's favorite had been the Trevi Fountain in _Roma_. Sly had even provided her with a coin to toss into the fountain from the roof of a nearby building, on which their table was set up, when there were no tourists standing near enough to discover them.

Most of the dinners had been a surprise to Carmelita, besides the first and second. The second had overlooked St. Mark's Basilica, and marked the occasion of the successful conviction of a cyberhacker and virus distributor that had been taking refuge in Venice (Sly had expended a mental sweat-drop during the Chief's vague description of the tech-savvy reptile while assigning them the case, and had inadvertently exhaled an actual sigh of relief upon reading that the criminal's name in the file was not Bentley's). During their assignments away from Venice, Carmelita could never figure out how Sly always managed to set up their table beforehand, seeing as how they conducted their investigations throughout the day and often went sight-seeing until late at night. It was during their late night tours that he would pull her into an alleyway suddenly when they had neared the location on their dinner, unforeseen to Carmelita, and climb with her to the roof of a building on which their table was already set up.

A few times a week during their time away from Venice, the two would leave their hotel room with a certain location in mind. Most nights, they would arrive at the landmark that had been their destination for the night, and after admiring the inside and the out for a few hours, would return to their hotel room. On certain nights, though, their destination was one that was entirely devoid of the disruptive tourists that populated Italy, and gave Carmelita hours to admire the raccoon sitting across from her that did so much to keep her life interesting. Each month without fail, Sly would treat her to a dinner secluded from the general public, surrounded by the overwhelmingly magnificent scenery that was a portrait of the country's glorious history.

Their third dinner had actually held the title of "date," and had been the night of their long-awaited first kiss - excluding, of course, their night in Russia, after which Sly had handcuffed her to a rail in Clockwerk's cavernous nest, which Carmelita hadn't found to be entirely romantic and Sly didn't remember anyway. The eighth date marked their first time, and during their eleventh dinner at the end of the month only a week ago on the balcony of Sly's apartment, they had proclaimed the start of their relationship when they agreed on the title of boyfriend/girlfriend rather than "partners with benefits." It was also during this dinner that they decided to keep their newly established affiliation to themselves, knowing that Chief Shepherd would fire them and throw them out onto the street with a box of their possessions in hand faster than they could sputter out, "But Chief...!" Carmelita had seen it happen before. She hoped, however, that if the Chief could see that their relationship didn't affect how they handled themselves on assignments together, he would make an exception for them. She was convinced that it would work.

"I think," Sly started, dragging Carmelita out of her revere, "we should do it in two weeks; that Friday will be the one year anniversary of our dinners. And you'll probably need the extra planning time, anyway," he taunted with a smirk. She let out a loud good-natured laugh, drawing other officers' eyes to them in annoyance. She hushed herself, eyes lowering to the desk with a guilty smirk.

"Alright," she agreed, not bothering to acknowledge his taunt. "Two weeks. But how will I get enough of you until then?" she asked, voice lowering further, watching as his pupils dilated and a suggestive smile spread across his face.

"Inspector Fox!"

The sudden interruption made the guilty officers jump, and Sly's eyes immediately averted to his folder of paperwork while Carmelita turned to the frantic voice with an expression she hoped looked less like a scowl than it felt like on her face. This new recruit needed to learn much faster than this. "What do you need, Marino?" she responded, using the young marten's surname, and hoping he wouldn't hear the growl of annoyance in her voice.

"I- I think I filed a report wrong," he sputtered, voice shaking with nervousness. His eyes were bloodshot with stress, and his shoulders tightened to the point of concealing his neck entirely. "I filed it as a case of fraud when I think it needed to be filed as identity theft," he told her, speaking quickly as he grew more panicked. "This wasn't my case, I haven't gone into the field yet- I was just filing it for a higher officer and I screwed it up, and-"

"Whoa, put the brakes on," Sly joked before Marino could become completely lost in his state of mindless hysteria. "Maybe you filed it wrong because you're thinking as quickly as you're speaking." Marino merely glanced at him before looking back to Carmelita, nearly pleading her with his eyes to assist him.

Carmelita sighed inwardly and stood to help the terrified young officer. She took the report out of his shaking outstretched hands, and read through it. "Yes, this is filed wrong. That's an easy mistake to rectify," she assured him quickly as his eyes widened, "but we will have to fill out a correction form to show that the mistake on the original paperwork has been fixed."

Marino nodded vehemently, following Carmelita as she lead him into the filing room, explaining the process of correcting the report as they walked.

Sly watched the two disappear around the corner to the filing rooms before turning back to the folder on his desk with a sigh. Assignments had become the breaks between piles of paperwork in the last few weeks, and, mysteriously, he always seemed to have more paperwork to fill out that assignments to fill out paperwork for. An envelope dropped onto his desk suddenly as another officer passed by, startling him back to attentiveness. "What's this?" Sly called to the officer's back, picking up the light envelope and noting with confusion that it had no return address.

"Even if I had the ability to see through the envelope to the paper inside, looking at other people's mail is a federal offense," the bear, whose name Sly could vaguely recall as Inspector Giordano, called back dully, barely turning his head to reply.

Sly ignored the brusque response, looking back down at the envelope in his hands. Receiving a letter at his desk was odd- usually all mail delivered to the station, if it was addressed to a specific person, was put into an officer's box. There was nothing on the envelope that marked it as urgent or indicated that it should be relayed to him directly. Sly considered following the officer for answers, but thought better of it; the bear hadn't seemed interested in stopping to chat, and he definitely hadn't appreciated that, within the past year, Sly had been constantly forgetting his surname and rank, even though he had been working at this particular station longer than Sly had. He ripped the envelope open curiously, knowing that trying for information out of the slighted officer would be a waste of time. In his overzealous efforts, he tore the entire top of the envelope off, and the contents flipped out onto his desk. Tossing the envelope aside, he picked up the white sheet of paper, folded into thirds. He lifted the top fold- oddly, the paper was blank. His brows furrowed in confusion, and, suspiciously, he opened the bottom half. A small blue oval fell to the desk as he did so, and he froze in surprise. He lowered the paper with stiff arms to conceal the blue shape and glanced around the station. None of the officers were watching him. He quickly refolded the paper, subtly scraping up the blue Cooper insignia with his fingers, holding it under the paper as he reached for the envelope.

This was the third time within the past few weeks that he had received one of his own blue Cooper cards by an anonymous sender; the first had been sent to his personal mail at his apartment the week before, and he discovered another sitting on the seat of his motorcycle after his shift at the station only a few days later. He had crumpled it up and shoved it in his pocket before Carmelita could see, but had unfolded it and stared at it later, as if it would eventually break down and tell him who had left it behind. Someone was trying to send him a message. Whoever was sending these knew everything about him, was familiar with every aspect of his current life- his apartment, his means of transportation, his job. How long would it be before they targeted Carmelita? Or the Chief? His arms nearly shook with the desire to shove the contents back in violently to get them out of sight, but he forced himself to move at normal speed so as not to draw other officers' attention. Once the contents were safely concealed, he folded the entire envelop in half and slipped it into the pocket inside of his jacket, hanging on the back of his chair, his hand settling back onto the desk just as Constable Marino came back out of the filing room looking much more relaxed, followed by Carmelita, who held a new folder in her hand. Sly quickly put on a smile as his eyes landed on her, and watched as her own mouth curved upwards in response, seemingly of its own accord. She returned to the desk, unaware of the worries in Sly's pocket much heavier than the envelope in which they were concealed.

"So," she began, seeming flustered as Sly continued to stare at her, "have we set a date for our next rooftop dinner?"

"Two weeks; Friday. Remember, I'm entrusting you with the one year anniversary of these dinners. I consider them a rather inspired tradition, Inspector, so try not to botch it," he joked, trying to ease the tension of his own shoulders.

"Being a woman of the law doesn't make me uncreative, Constable," she said, giving him a mock glare as he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Tell that to your workspace, officer," he replied, gesturing to the desk, devoid of any personal touches besides a plant with a proudly advertised "Low Maintenance!" sticker on the side of the pot.

"My desk is the most productive in the station, Cooper," she retorted, her smirk defying her furrowed brows. "Besides, personal touches are just catalysts for small talk."

"Oh, _that's_ it then?" he questioned. Carmelita looked at him in confusion. "You haven't personalized your workspace because you don't want to talk to anyone!" She let out a loud laugh, quieting herself again as more officers looked over the glare at them.

"Small talk reduces productivity, as does taunting," she told him jovially.

"Back to work then. No dawdling under the rule of Inspector Fox," he continued to tease.

"Yeah, you'll see the logic in my philosophy when you're the first of your batch of recruits to get promoted a rank," she reminded him, head lowering to read through the new file she had brought back to their desk.

"Thank goodness for you, then," Sly replied softly. Her eyes flickered up to him, as a slow grin spread across her face. After watching him for a second, her eyes returned to the folder without responding, smile remaining.

* * *

Chief Shepherd knew what Carmelita was trying to hide from him; he could see the telltale signs in her behavior. After thirty-one years of police work, he wasn't stupid, oblivious, or evasive when it came to acknowledging certain things about his officers. He had no qualms about telling officers if they had a deficiency when it came to their work, and no sympathy when it so happened that an officer's deficiency ruined their ability to perform. Such officers were not kept on his Force. Only those who could overcome deficiencies were allowed to keep their job.

Carmelita had a deficiency- Chief Shepherd had no doubt. But despite the fact that he knew she would never overcome it, Shepherd also knew that he did not possess the ability to fire her. His inability to purge the Force of her deficiency, however, did not come entirely from the fact that crime, from intricately organized mobs to petty thievery, had nearly dissipated in Venice due to Carmelita's heavy unforgiving palm of judicial integrity, figuratively smacking criminals into their places. His hesitance to dismiss her came as a result of the fact that he truly, genuinely admired her character. She had an unwavering confidence in her own ability without being arrogant; an undying loyalty to the Force; and an unusual enthusiasm for and persistence to her cases, her efforts only ceasing after her criminals were jailed and her paperwork filed. Shepherd had never seen such qualities in any officer with a rank below his own, and he knew that he would be the stupidest idiot if he were to remove a natural cop like her from his ranks.

But her particular affliction, he knew, would drain just as much energy from her as she expended on her cases. She was in love with Cooper. He could see it in her face. From his position in his office, he watched Carmelita return to her desk from across the station and lean in close to Cooper to whisper to him. She had held feelings for him even before he joined the Force, deeper than merely the near-excessive loyalty she had developed to the Cooper Gang case, and now that the raccoon was able to return her affection without conflict of the law, Carmelita was continuing to fall probably harder than she realized. They paused in their conversation, and Sly looked at her with eyes promising things to come. As he watched, a strange thought occurred to the Chief-it was as if nothing had changed between the two, even with the ever-present reality of Sly's amnesia- the fact that any chemistry and history between Carmelita and Sly was completely lost to him, as was everything else he had ever known. Had he fallen for her again?

Carmelita stood and left with the newest addition to the Force, and Sly watched her walk away longingly. How could Cooper have developed the same feelings for Carmelita as those he held for her before his accident on the island? It had even seemed like he had been flirting with her within the first few weeks of returning from his family's vault, and the Chief could only assume that Carmelita hadn't included the little detail about their previously suppressed chemistry when she had informed him of the life he couldn't remember. Were his current feelings for her a result of the fact that she had been his steady source of comfort and stability after having to start his entire life over again? He watched as Sly ripped open the envelope that had just been dropped onto his desk. Something blue and oblong fell out, and Sly quickly covered it with the paper in his hands, glancing around the office suspiciously. The Chief's eyebrows raised, then lowered as he squinted and half stood, leaning over his desk trying to get a better inspection of what had looked like Cooper's own calling card through the tinted windows in his office. Cooper shoved the envelope away quickly, and put on an inconspicuous grin for Carmelita as she returned, oblivious to the secret Sly was now hiding in the pocket of his jacket.

Sitting back down in disbelief, the Chief watched Sly's grinning face carefully. Sly had recognized the Cooper emblem- had Carmelita told him about those? Although his gang had left them behind at every crime scene, they were an insignificant detail in the grand scheme of Sly's life. Would Carmelita have described them in depth? She certainly wouldn't have had one on hand to show him - how could he know what they look like? And, seeing as how Sly's criminal file was one of the thickest and most important in the office's system, only a small few had access to it. As far as the Chief knew, Carmelita hadn't touched it since returning with Sly; she definitely couldn't have taken one of Cooper's cards out without the Chief knowing about it. Carmelita glanced up from the folder she had been reading to look at Sly, who had on one of the same evocative faces he used to give her during their encounters on Carmelita's Cooper Gang assignments. Did Sly remember their history? How would that be possible? Could he have remembered something on his own and not told Carmelita _or_ the Chief? Did he remember everything?

Had he never forgotten in the first place? The sudden thought made the Chief's eyes widen. Would Sly really have... ?

As the thought occurred to him, Shepherd shook his head as if to expel the ridiculous question from his head. Of course Sly would have. The Chief just had to make sure.

* * *

**[FLASHBACK]**

Evaluations hadn't lasted just a day- they'd lasted a week. Master Terasu had yet to make an appearance at one of Gelisah's evaluations. Instead, she and her various sparring partners had been scrutinized by other mentors of the dojo. There had been five mentors on the first day, but every day after that there had only been one watching her. By the seventh day of her evaluations, Gelisah had no energy or resolve left. Anticipating only one day of evaluations with various opponents, she fought with all the vehemence and intensity her body held on her first day, splitting the skin on her knuckles and receiving at least one bruise on every part of her body. When they had announced that she would have to endure another assessment the next day, she had panicked, but returned with just as much vigor as the day before, only with considerably less force behind her hits, and considerably more jabs to her body. Her days had proceeded much like that for a week, and in addition to being thoroughly beaten, Gelisah had managed to panic herself into the conviction that she had somehow stumbled upon another dojo in the forest, having not seen Master Terasu once as of yet, and was stuck here in this inferior place rather than training with the divine figure who had inspired her to pursue training in the first place. The seventh day was the day she had finally given up; of course, it was also the day the monkey had chosen to emerge.

Her legs were about to give out. Her arms possessed no force behind her hits, even when her fists did manage to make contact with her opponent. Her right eye was barely able to focus, vision distorted by fatigue and the crippling headache this fight had given her; her left eye had already swollen up almost entirely. Today's sparring partner seemed partial to punishing that side of her face. The Peruvian black caiman struck her with a hard kick to the stomach, sending Gelisah stumbling backwards, smacking into the wall behind her. The trainer evaluating her today moved closer, getting a better view of her as her façade of determination crumbled with a whimper, and her face fell into a hopeless pout of pain and fearful anticipation. The animal advanced on her again and grabbed both of her wrists in his left hand hand, drawing his other hand back as if to smack her. Gelisah almost laughed in his face in her state of near-delirium - he was training with some of the best fighters in the world and the best next move he could come up with was to smack her? She closed her eyes, grimacing, face turning and shoulders hunching in expectation. Before the caiman - he hadn't even given her the courtesy of telling her his name before they began fighting - could hit her, however, an authoritative voice rang out through the room.

"Enough!"

Her partner dropped her wrists, and stepped away quickly. Without opening her eyes, Gelisah sank to the floor, knees drawing up to her chest. She could hear the footsteps of the new arrival coming into the room. "You're target has already surrendered," the deep gravelly voice reprimanded the caiman. "Must you continue to attack a fallen enemy? This has become more a punishment than a fight."

"I will learn, Master Terasu," the reptile responded guiltily. Gelisah looked up sharply, head spinning dizzyingly. She squinted through her right eye at the monkey, trying to focus; it was him. He had actually shown up… on the day of her most humiliating defeat. He looked over at her, slumped on the ground, and she quickly tried to stand. Her body throbbed rebelliously, and she winced in pain as she fell back against the wall. She attempted again, moving much slower.

Master Terasu looked over at her partner and told him briskly, "You are dismissed." He bowed deeply to Master Terasu and left the room, followed by the mentor.

Gelisah, having managed to stand, bowed low to the monkey. Remaining low, she swallowed hard before she spoke, tasting blood in her mouth. "It is an honor to train in your dojo, Master Terasu."

"Stand up straight," he commanded gently. She quickly obliged, stretching her aching shoulders back and mentally swiping her face clean of the defeated expression of pain. He circled her slowly, taking stock of her battered and bruised body. Gelisah could almost feel him inspecting her trembling right leg, which had received a crippling kick to the knee by the caiman, her left shoulder that slumped as a result of having her arm twisted behind her back multiple times the day before, and the swollen left side of her face. Her eye was completely shut by now, and her bottom lip was fat, feeling awkward and wrong on her face. He stopped in front of her again, and she lowered her chin and averted her good eye as a show of respect.

"You have determination and will stronger than any other fighter I have seen at this dojo," he told her, the tone of his voice proffering something Gelisah _must_ have misinterpreted as admiration. Shocked by the unexpected compliment, she looked up at him, eyes wide. Catching herself, she looked down again, bowing her head in gratefulness.

"Thank you, Master," she replied quickly, having no idea what else to say in response.

"I instructed the trainers of the dojo to handle your evaluations until the day you finally surrendered to your opponent. After five consecutive days of evaluations, I began keeping a closer eye on you. When the other mentors informed me that you had begun a seventh day of sparring, I decided to survey the fight inconspicuously." He watched her carefully, as if the details of her face would provide him with whatever information he was searching for. "The evaluations was meant to push you to exhaustion, test your limits and tolerance for pain. But I did not expect you to endure for this long." He paused, continuing to search her face. "I'd like to evaluate you myself," he mused, almost to himself. After another pause, he continued again. "You will not be evaluated tomorrow, or the rest of the day today. Use the time off to recuperate; we will put you to work tomorrow, but it will not be strenuous. I will conduct your final evaluation myself in two days. Rest today- heal. I am eager to see you perform. You may go."

"Yes, Master," she said, bowing low again. She left the room swiftly, exhaling in relief and disbelief as soon as she was out of Master Terasu's sight.

* * *

After five minutes of trying unsuccessfully to pry the swollen skin away from her left eye enough to open it, Gelisah sighed and pressed her wet washcloth back over her eyelid. Without easy access to ice, the engorged blood vessels around her eye would just have to heal in their own time. She leaned backwards from her seat at the foot of her bed and flopped down, stretching her arms above her head and her legs out parallel to the ground, trying to alleviate some of the soreness that was making her limbs throb. When she felt sufficiently stretched out, she relaxed her entire body, feet falling to the floor and arms extended off her bed in either direction. As she began drifting to sleep, she had the fleeting thought that this was the first time she had felt peaceful in the week since she had arrived.

The crash of objects in a drawer being yanked open startled Gelisah awake, and she sat up suddenly with a gasp of surprise. The cloth fell off of her eye and landed on her stomach with a squelch, soaking a small wet spot onto her shirt. Her head swirled, and she brought a hand to her forehead to steady herself so as not to fall off her bed as Tori shoved her drawer closed again, seemingly having taken nothing out. Lihai stood in the doorway, looking uncomfortable.

"So you finally quit today, huh? They kicking you out as soon as you have enough brains back in your head to find your way home?" Tori asked bitterly, watching Gelisah expectantly as she pressed the cloth back to her eye and rung the moisture out of the spot on her shirt. Taking note of Gelisah's swollen eye, Tori's face shifted slightly into an unreadable expression, but Gelisah could only assume it was either a grimace of disgust or a sneer of victory knowing that the other students of the dojo had managed to inflict so much pain on her, and had literally beaten her into submission.

The fox's opinion of Gelisah had not changed within the past week, nor had her mood mellowed. Her intimidating glares had thankfully decreased in frequency, but Gelisah had not yet been able to sleep peacefully through the night with Tori sleeping in the same room, anticipating a pillow to be shoved over her face to smother her at any moment. She found it fortunate that Odoroki had seemingly been assigned the role of "tour guide" during the day, because she would otherwise certainly have gone adrift in the surprisingly large dojo. Tori would inevitably find her in some remote corner of the building, lost and disoriented, and beat out her will to live.

Nervously, Gelisah removed the towel from her eye, unfolded and refolded it, and pressed it back to her face before responding through her fattened lips: "The mentors have been evaluating me this whole week, but I didn't see Master Terasu until today. He came in during my spar and told me to take today and tomorrow to heal - that he will evaluate me himself after that." Neither roommate responded, making Gelisah instantly anxious. She risked a glance at Tori, who looked absolutely horrified. Shoving past Lihai, she stormed out of the room. Bewildered, Gelisah looked over to Lihai, who held a similar look of shock on her face. Embarrassed, she looked down quickly, and walked into the room to her bedside table, rooting through the contents inside with more concentration than Gelisah thought was necessary for the tiny drawer.

"Is that... bad?" Gelisah asked hesitantly.

Lihai sighed and set a handful of incense sticks on the surface of the small table, turning to regard Gelisah fully for probably the first time all week. "Master Terasu hasn't worked with a new student individually for years. He's never done so for the extent of my time here," she informed her, referring to the six years she had already spent in the dojo. "Tori has been here two years, but her hopes that she would be chosen to receive selective training have remained just as powerful as they were in her first week. The Master has..." she hesitated, looking down and picking up the sticks of incense, laying them flat in her open palm and then enclosing them into a bundle in a fist. "He has very high expectations," she continued, "and if he wishes to train you personally, it means he sees a lot of potential in you," she finished, staring at Gelisah, who couldn't seem to process a response. Lihai looked into her drawer again and pulled out her book of matches, handing it and the incense to Gelisah. "Burn this," she advised. "It will help you relax while you heal. I wish you a swift recovery." With a small bow of her head, Lihai left their shared room, leaving Gelisah shocked and almost giddy with hope.

* * *

_Okay, I'm gonna try to keep this AN short this time (is that possible?)! I do have a lot of things I want to say about my story, though, so I want to make a video about all my thoughts concerning this chapter, previous chapters (mostly chapter 8), and future chapters, but I don't want to make it if it would be a waste of time, so let me know if that's something you would enjoy. If you have any questions, leave them in reviews and I can answer them in the video and give you a link for it in the next chapter! Woo! Okay, so...  
_

_OH EM GEE! This update took SO LONG! Sorry, guys! Crazy schedule lately. But no one cares about that..._

_I am so excited to give you guys this chapter! Fo realz. I originally wanted to include **much** more, but that would have made the chapter insanely long- it's already about 5,500 words. It's okay that I had to cut so much out, though, because now I have a lot of content for my next chapter, which I'm anticipating will NOT take as long as this one did! There is SO much to come. muwahaha. A lot of impending drama, but I'm a fan of drama, and hopefully I can convert all of you, also. Although I suppose the drama has been delayed one chapter, but it is coming, so prepare! The next chapter will be relatively short- mostly transition points for the big content filled chapter 11!  
_

_So... I think that's it. _

_Thanks for reading, and remember that you will have my eternal love and gratitude if you leave a review!  
_


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